As Gone Raw grows, we’ve noticed that recipes pop up here and there that aren’t completely raw or vegan (view a coupleexamples). We’ve talked about a number of options for recipes such as these, including:

Leave them be.

Flag them with a banner of some sort indicating they may not be raw/vegan.

Delete them.

What would you prefer? Or, do you have another suggestion for the recipes?

There’s bound to be some controversy, regardless of the choice… but I’m thinking it might be best to just delete anything not raw and vegan. Right? Otherwise, it’s not really living up to the Gone Raw name, is it?

There’s also a question of spices, such as chipotle. This isn’t raw, yet many raw chefs are using it (for example, see this kale chipotle recipe by the Raw Chef. This might be a situation where flagging recipes could be useful.

Perhaps flag them. There is a local restaurant that tags their dishes on the menu with a label: Raw, Vegan, Vegetarian. That way, by quick glance, you know. As for me, I’m trying to be as raw as possible—but that doesn’t mean 100% right now. So, I wouldn’t mind some recipes that have a few non-raw items.

I agree with flagging. There are many recipes that are darn near 99% raw, with the exception of a spice or small condiment (which can be organic at least). It’d be a shame to not include these when the total amount of the 1/4 teaspoon spice, for example, is for the whole dish. I have a range of recipes I’m excited to share, and they range from 1000% simple raw to gourmet raw (I’ll have spices and/or tiny amounts of condiments).

I do feel it would be kind of weird if there were non vegan recipes on here though.

Yeah… these are good points. It’s a fine line, sometimes. For borderline cases, flagging might be sufficient. However, a raw recipe featuring tuna originally sparked the discussion between Kandace and I. We aren’t 100% raw, but we are 100% vegan.

Perhaps if something is vegan but not totally raw, we just flag it, but if it’s got meat or dairy, we delete it. That sounds fair, eh?

I think this gets into the questions of the definition of raw foods. I have been under the impression that a raw foods lifestyle is also a vegan lifestyle. Is this an assumption or something that is generally practiced? I have so many questions about this, that I just started a forum topic asking: What does it mean to be raw? Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks.

From what I understand, raw doesn’t have to be vegan. Although I have chosen the vegan route, others who eat raw sometimes include raw fish, meat and dairy products. Kandace and Raymond, it is your site, so I think it should be your decision whether or not to delete nonvegan raw recipes. If you do, you might want to post something on the main page about this only being a vegan site, and e-mail the member who posted the recipe so he or she will know why it is gone.

Also, I am basically vegan, but I have included honey and bee pollen in a variety of my recipes. Some people who claim to be vegan use these products, while other vegans are more strict and do not include them in their diets. I understand if you would like to flag these items as being “vegan with honey,” like some vegetarian sites do, or I could change them to remove the honey.

As for what to do with recipes that are not completely raw, I also think they should be flagged. I don’t see it being necessary to remove them when the majority of the recipe is raw, especially since many of the members of this site are not completely raw. If you flag the recipe, then members can make their own decision as to whether or not they want to make the recipe or use substitutions.

I was under the impressiom that unpasterized dairy, ceviche, etc. where raw (so long as they’re not heated above 110 f). I find it difficult to find non-vegan raw recipes online and am excited to find them.

Perhaps, you could flag then as “non-vegan”? Also, whould it be alright if I share raw non-vegan recipes in the future? Or whould you prefer I keep them to myself ;)

Wow, thanks everyone for all your input! All great points. We’re going to go ahead and stick with our original idea, which was to make Gone Raw about vegan, raw recipes.

Defining raw alone can be tough and there are a lot of borderline cases. For now, recipes that are in the spirit of raw are fine (we’re not going to be looking at condiments, spices, etc). If something is vegan, but not totally raw – we might go ahead and flag that at some time, but not in the near future, as we have a lot to learn about raw foods ourselves first.

Non-vegan recipes are easy to identify and we’ll delete those. This isn’t to say that there is anything wrong with folks deciding to eat non-vegan – this just isn’t the site for those recipes. Again, thanks everyone for helping us out with this. We always enjoy hearing your thoughts!

It would be nice if you could make it clear on your homepage that your website is only for raw, VEGAN recipes. The word “raw” certainly does not imply veganism. I have several 100% raw recipes for chocolate mousse, eggnog, mayonnaise, dried and cured meats and fishes (no dairy, as this is clearly not part of the natural human diet) which I would have been inclined to share had I not happened upon this forum topic! THANKS.

Good point, LovefoodLaughter! Our home page states that Gone Raw is a website created to help people share and discuss raw, vegan food recipes from around the world. However, once you are logged in, this statement is replaced with account information. I’m guessing that many, myself included, basically stay logged in once joining, so the statement isn’t a lot of help after that. We’ll get something up that is clearer when logged in as well!